Contempo Shuts Offices, Issues Pink Slips

After expanding throughout the 1990s, Contempo Design is now closing offices and retooling operations.

Contempo's restructuring is just the latest sign that the exhibit design sector continues to struggle as corporate exhibitors delay orders for new booths. Just last month, competitor Exhibit Dynamics filed for bankruptcy, leaving investors and small vendors owed $21.9 million.

Like Exhibit Dynamics, the 28-year-old Contempo apparently plans to continue in business with scaled-back operations. But at least two of its six offices were closed and the employees there laid off. In addition, CEO Rob Shaw has departed, leaving Contempo in the hands of CFO Jeff Buzzerio, company employees said.

About 35 employees lost their jobs with the closure of Contempo's Milpitas, Calif. office, which had been operating since 1991. Five more workers at space/craft, the Portland, Ore. retail design subsidiary, were advised on Friday, Feb. 13 that their site would close and they would be terminated without severance pay, the employees said.

The Poway, Calif. office, which Contempo acquired in 1999 from Powerhouse Exhibits, is scheduled to continue operating, as is the company's headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville. The decade-old Edison, N.J. office and an international office established in Amsterdam eight years ago also avoided shuttering. Buzzerio did not re-turn phone calls seeking additional details.

At its peak, the company employed 400 and offered more than 700,000 square feet of manufacturing space, nearly half of it in Libertyville, Ill. Contempo also started an installation and dismantle company called Optimum Resource Group.

Jim Wurm, executive director of the Exhibitor Appointed Contractor Assn., said he's not surprised that association member Contempo is streamlining operations. "It certainly is a situation that sounds familiar. I know they've been struggling for a while," he said. "When our industry hits tough times, the exhibit display manufacturers are the first to feel it, since the easiest thing for an exhibitor to put off is building a new booth."

Although featuring a few large players, the booth design and manufacturing business is mostly dominated by small players. Due to the sheer number of competitors, the effect of declining corporate exhibit spending is difficult to gauge. However, there has been a marked decline in the number of exhibit designers and producers appearing in the Tradeshow Week Buyer's Guide. In 2001, more than 350 exhibit designers were listed; the 2004 edition lists about 200.

Companies that diversified beyond tradeshows into other markets had a better chance of surviving over the past few years, said Wurm. Contempo had expanded into the retail, financial, museum and corporate interior markets, but the lion's share of its clients still are corporate exhibitors.